Short Blades

The dagger and short sword are Western Imperial weapons. The tanto and wakizashi are styled after Akaviri blades. These weapons are light and fast, most effective against lightly armored opponents, but a skilled user can outlast more heavily armed and armored opponents. The dagger, tanto, and short sword are thrusting weapons, the wakizashi a chopping and slashing weapon. Rank them by effectiveness as dagger, tanto, short sword, and wakizashi, with dagger least effective. - Garothmuk gro-Muzgub

* The Iron Fork is not found in-game. It is the base item for the Fork of Horripilation.** Silver Daggers sometimes appear in a cursed variety, identified as "Ancient Silver Dagger". See Cursed Items for details.*** A cursed version of the Glass Dagger also exists. The cursed version may be identified on sight by its lower damage values.**** The Daedric Wakizashi is the most powerful short blade, as a custom-enchated weapon, in the entire game (including all official expansions and plugins). While only the third most powerful short blade in stock damage, after the unique and pre-enchanted Fang of Haynekhtnamet (base + Shock Damage) and the unenchanted Goblin SwordTR (base damage only), it can have up to an additional theoretical 1–109 points in either Fire or Frost Damage. Because the Magnitude slider only goes to 100, the actual minimum non-wasteful enchantment is 10–100 (any combination that adds up to 110 will also use the full capacity of the weapon, e.g. 40–70). Thus, its actual maximum damage per strike is 130 total (plus any bonuses for Strength, Weakness to [effect], etc.); the Daedric Shortsword maxes at 126, the Ebony Shortsword at 94, the Goblin Sword at 80, the Daedric Tanto at 73, and the Fang at 70.